G. H. Palmer

George Herbert Palmer (Grantchester, 9 August 1846 - Oxford, 20 June 1926) was an English Anglo-Catholic priest, musicologist, organist, and expert on plainchant, particularly of the Sarum Use. Named after the priest and poet George Herbert, he was ordained a priest in Chester in 1871 and later was organist of St Margaret's Church in Toxteth Park, Liverpool, and St Barnabas, Pimlico, London. He helped found the Plainsong and Medieval Music Society (PMMS) in 1888. The majority of his extensive editions of liturgical music and texts were produced by the PMMS and the Community of St Mary the Virgin at Wantage in Oxfordshire. He was notable and influential for his musically sensitive translations of Latin hymns into English.[1]

  1. ^ Modern translation - Page 77 Ernest Stuart Bates - 1936 - G. H. Palmer. The latter made it the main concern of the latter part of a long life to anglicize the Latin words of the medieval English liturgy so that they should harmonize as faithfully with the original accompaniment of 'plain-chant' as did the Latin. He combined qualifications rarely found in unison: a scholar's gift for research, a poet's sense of words, a musician's knowledge of music, and a sense of perfection entirely his own. His Salisbury 'Diurnal' is, in consequence, not only a model ...